Requiem for a butterfly keyboard

Perhaps the nicest thing we can say about the Apple MacBook Butterfly keyboard is: “Thank you for your service.” Yes, it helped introduce thinner, lighter, and more portable MacBooks, but we can safely say that the butterfly keyboard has never been fun.

With the latest update to 13-inch MacBook ProApple has officially left the butterfly keyboard business. The three main Mac laptops that MacBook Air, 16-inch MacBook Pro and the 13-inch MacBook Pro now all use the updated Magic keyboard, a significant change from the time last year when every MacBook included the highly malicious butterfly keyboard.

I started about a year ago, at the height of butterfly hysteria, when every MacBook was equipped with one of these things contrary defense of the keyboard design. It was pretty cheeky, although I might think again how much.

My point was and is that it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as terrible as the online zeitgeist would make you think. After all, I said: “People just don’t go to Twitter to report that their product is working as expected.” Weak praise, but the scale of the butterfly panic had risen to the level of the torch-bearing villagers Dr. Frankenstein was chasing, although most MacBook users actually didn’t have any serious keyboard problems.

I have estimated that I have used at least eight MacBooks with a butterfly keyboard extensively in the past few years and have had only one serious problem with stuck keys. what I fixed myself by turning it upside down and fidgeting with the key. That is not supposed to address the many serious consumer problems nor the complain, the Updates to repair guidelines and the miserable feeling of paying top dollars for a premium product that just doesn’t keep its promise.

Currently running:
Look at that:

Practical: The new MacBook Pro is catching up

5:13

The worst version of this butterfly keyboard was the first in the 2015 12-inch MacBook. The keys had no bounce, but the 12-inch MacBook was a great idea, I was ready to take the keyboard with me. It is rarely recognized, but the butterfly keyboard has evolved over time and gets better with every incarnation. The best version was the update in mid-2018, in which a rubber membrane was placed under the keys. This kept debris away and only gave the keys an indication of an additional crack. If the butterfly keyboard came on the market in 2015, we would certainly think much differently.

Laptops offer an enormous amount of technology and performance in a small space. Buyers and yes, reviewers are demanding more and more battery life and more powerful processors. This requires physically larger batteries and enough space for fans and cooling chambers. At the same time, we are demanding laptops that are becoming thinner and lighter. There must be something, and keyboards seem like a good place to shave a few millimeters. Narrator voice: It wasn’t.

The argument is now largely academic. Instead of refining the butterfly keyboard further, Apple sent it to the back country farm where it is located 12-inch MacBook, 11-inch MacBook Air, MagSafe connector and other retired devices and technologies.

It is the best. Using the new Magic Keyboard design in the 16-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and now in the 13-inch MacBook Pro is a huge improvement. When I started using it on the 16-inch Pro in late 2019, My first thought was“Where the hell has that been in the past four years?”

Maybe the butterfly keyboard problems were our own fault – user errors are often blamed for products that don’t work as expected. If only we didn’t insist on eating over our keyboards, where faulty crumbs could get stuck in the tiny spaces under the keys. If only we could be satisfied with the barely existing click of a super flat keyboard instead of insisting on the satisfactory click of the key stroke. But we are not robots. We eat around our laptops. We want to feel what we’re typing as we type.

Arthur C. Clarke said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Perhaps the same can be said for good keyboard development.